one passage, or any mention of the New
Testament; nor in all the rest is any one of the evangelists called by
his own name. And if sometimes they cite any passages like those
we read in our gospels; yet, you will find them so much changed,
and for the most part so interpolated, that it cannot be known,
whether they produced them out of ours, or some apocryphal
gospels; nay, they sometimes cite passages which it is most certain
are not in the present gospels. From hence, therefore, it is evident
that no difference was yet put between the apocryphal and
canonical books of the New Testament, especially if it be
considered, that they pass no censure on the apocryphal, nor leave
any mark whereby the reader might discern whether they attributed
less authority to the spurious than to the genuine gospels; from
whence it may reasonably be suspected, that if they cite sometimes
any passages conformable to ours, it was not done through any
certain design, as if dubious things were to be confirmed only by
the canonical books, so as it is very possible that both those and the
like passages may have been borrowed from other gospels besides
these we now have. But what need I mention books that are not
canonical, when indeed it does not appear from those of our
canonical books which were last written, that the church knew any
thing of the gospels, or that the clergy made a common use of
them. The writers of these times do not chequer their works with
texts of the New Testament, which yet is the custom of the
moderns, and was also theirs in such books as they acknowledge
for scripture; for they most frequently cite the books of the Old
Testament, and would, doubtless, have done so by those of the
New, if they had then been received as canonical."

So far Mr. Dodwell, and (excepting the genuineness of the writings
of Barnabas and the rest, for they are incontestably ancient,) it is
certain that the matters of fact with regard to the New Testament
are all true. Whoever has an inclination to write on this subject, is
furnished from this passage with a great many curious disquisitions
wherein to show his penetration and his judgment, as--how the
immediate successors and disciples of the apostles could so grossly
confound the genuine writings of their masters with such as were
falsely attributed to them; or since they were in the dark about
these matters so early, how come such as followed them, by a
better light; why all those books whic